Pics: Accidents in India

This is a discussion on Pics: Accidents in India within Road Safety, part of the Team-BHP category; Another horrible accident.
http://www.vikatan.com/news/article....utm_campaign=1
https://youtu.be/2i4oJpKZOcU...

Regarding the Audi accident, what surprises me is that she seems to have driven around in Mumbai quite a lot (Marine Drive, Chembur, etc) at midnight, but was not stopped by any police patrol. Don't they have this police checks at nakas like they used to have earlier ? I remember being stopped for checks at night while riding to work - sometime in the mid-nineties.

Given the stringent check on DUI and general patrolling in place in Chennai today, she would have been intercepted much before she could do damage.

Police checks in India are 'selective', to put it mildly. They stop or let people go at their whim. Some vehicle descriptions (you know which) are exempt, so are seemingly most women riders/drivers when it comes to 'usual' traffic offenses.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

.....people who seemed to be able to drive safely with large amounts of alcohol in their blood. The ultimate difference is they did not make that series of mistakes that lead to the the death of others.......

It never was a good idea to drive drunk, and most people who ever got away with it were riding their luck rather than driving abilities. Given there are infinitely more objects (stationary, moving and human) that one can crash into compared to a few decades ago, it's practically homicidal to even think about driving drunk now, forget actually trying it.

Putting emotion aside for a moment, the sheer statistical possibility of getting into an(y) accident has gone up manifold from a few decades ago; drunk, sober or whatever.

I am not sure if she is human at all. From my own example, if I am sloshed, so bad that I can't stand straight, my head is spinning and I feel like throwing up, the last thing I want is to sit in my car and drive, heck even sitting inside a taxi will make me feel sick, the only thing I would want to do, is lie down somewhere, even on a park bench and wait for the sickening feeling to die down.
Under such circumstances (after 6 whisky pegs) how can anyone have enough motor skills to get into a car and drive down? She cannot be human, must be a part robot or something, and this is speaking only physically, I am sure emotionally she must be dead a long time back...

I know I'm a bit of a born-again tee-teetotaller and all that, really rather anti-alcohol for all its physical and social ill effects, but I wasn't always like that, I can say this from personal experience as well as a judgement: Alcohol makes people stupid, and, on top of that, it makes them overconfident, and, if they are brash and arrogant (or even quiet and arrogant) when sober, they will be much much more so with even a little alcohol inside them, let alone a lot.

I'm not, in any way, speaking up for this woman, but people are doing what she did every day. Perhaps some of them are actually better at handling a car than she turned out to be. Back in the bad old days, thirty or forty years ago, I knew quite a few people who seemed to be able to drive safely with large amounts of alcohol in their blood. The ultimate difference is they did not make that series of mistakes that lead to the the death of others and the ruining (if there is any justice) of their own lives and careers.

It is just amazing how the drink/drive climate has changed in UK from "one for the road" to many people completely abstaining if they are to drive. It is all in one generation. Some of those complete abstainers (not even drinking within the legal limit, when driving) are the same people I mentioned in the previous paragraph.

It needs a change in people, and a change in society. People watching this case may well think twice about their own actions in the future. Despite the common-sense-numbing effects of alcohol, they might just might stop and think, "It's just not worth the risk."

Sorry that's all a bit preachy, but, obviously, many of us have strong feelings.

Above a particular level of alcohol, which makes you tipsy, there is no way someone is a "safe" driver. There are only drivers who crash into something or reach home by plain luck. The latter should not be mistaken for skill, and should never be encouraged! I believe a good driver when drunk just blends in with the mad chaotic Indian driving, which when sober, he/she despises. And a bad driver, well, ends up here on this thread or the news most probably.

No pics and a comparatively minor accident but this is causing heated debate on the building association mailing list of an apartment that I own.

Scenario - gated community, with a driveway around two apartment blocks, leading to underground parking and going past the entrances of both apartment blocks.

Woman #1's car pulls up in front of the entrance of one of the blocks and opens the door to get down and pick someone up. Another car coming up from behind her car decides it is the best time to overtake, and goes past - only to have woman #1's opening car door hit and damage both doors. In the words of woman #2 driving the second car -

Quote:

"After the engine portion of my car passed thru' you had opened the door without seeing behind and outside. Hence your car door touched on the right mirror of my car and pulled door towards right side and also damaged my car - both doors. "

Now arises the question of just who is at fault - with opinion equally divided as to whether

1. Woman #1 should have looked for oncoming traffic before opening the car door

2. Woman #2 should have seen the parked car, and either waited, or overtaken with enough clearance to budget for an opening door - the car in front was after all parked at a building entrance.

Note 1 - it is a fairly narrow two lane driveway - just about enough for two cars to cross each other with some amount of clearance (incoming and outgoing lanes for cars heading to the apartment parking lot).

Note 2 - Heated debate on the mailing list preceded by the usual and predictable arguments at the accident site

TBHP opinions welcome. I personally told both of them that there were faults on both sides, and they should chalk it up to a lesson learnt in driving safety and get their own cars fixed with their own insurance.

1. Woman #1 should have looked for oncoming traffic before opening the car door

Though it does take two hands to clap, I would say Woman #1 is at fault here, at least more so.
It's basic common sense to check for vehicles/ pedestrians before opening the door. Just because one is parked at the building entrance, it doesn't give them the right to open doors without checking if there's someone else trailing. Woman #2 would have expected the first car to wait until she had passed before opening the door.

-- Woman #1 didn't check before opening doors- at fault.
-- Woman #1 checked, saw a car, still opened the door- at fault again. Waiting for the car to pass would've been more prudent. After all, a passing car takes less time than a passenger boarding, settling down and car moving off.

OMG! What a fool hardy move by an educated and well placed sauve professional (I assume that a corporate lawyer or for that matter any professionally qualified person will be so) to commit such knowingly heinous act of DUI.
Let alone driving skills the body and brain will be totally out of sync to function to expected biological standards.
Hope the intent of knowingly committing an act of illegal nature gets the highest possible punishment.
I am surprised that even alcohol consumption is a part of her daily work rigmarole. Hence the reason why her mother felt she was returning from work.

Though it does take two hands to clap, I would say Woman #1 is at fault here, at least more so.

I feel much the same here - but that doesn't obviate the thing about your being careful to swing away from a parked car and give it enough clearance, if you want to overtake it.

Additionally - there's a posted 10 kmph speed limit. For this sort of collision to occur, the car coming up from behind absolutely had to be doing a rather higher speed (possibly 25..30 if I don't miss my guess).

I feel much the same here - but that doesn't obviate the thing about your being careful to swing away from a parked car and give it enough clearance, if you want to overtake it.

The bar for defensive driving is higher than that for legal driving. While driver 2 didn't practice defensive driving, driver 1 is legally at fault here.

Quote:

Additionally - there's a posted 10 kmph speed limit. For this sort of collision to occur, the car coming up from behind absolutely had to be doing a rather higher speed (possibly 25..30 if I don't miss my guess).

Interesting fact on this topic of opening car doors is a common custom in Amsterdam and other cycle-friendly countries:

Driving instructors teach new motorists to use their right hand to open their door, which forces the driver to turn, putting them in a better position to see if a cyclist is approaching from behind. Remember they are LHD so correspondingly we will need to use our left hand to open the door.

Remarkable how a bit of common sense (once internalized from an early age), can definitely save lives!